"Very poor, no communication, treated..."

the whole experiencemy story starts on the 17th of november 2009 when my son was born, his first night in this world, he and my partner were not looked after as i feel they should have been, she was a first time mother and very scared and didnt know how to breast feed and it took an hour before she was offerend any help. At 10 days of age he was brought back to the hospital for restlessness and vomiting and fainting, we sat in A&E for 2 hours with this young baby who was very ill, after finnally seeing the triage nurse, she checked his sats and commented they were low but was probably a problem with the machine but he wasnt blue so must be ok and discharged us. 2 days later we were back in A&E with the same problems, again after a long wait we saw a different triage nurse who also said his sats were low and tried 3 different machines before deciding that it was the correct reading. he was then put on oxygen using nasal prongs which were far to big for his nose and tore the skin causing even more discomfort for him. we were then transfered to willow ward where we stayed while he got worse for the next 3 days until we was told he had 3 hours to live. he was then rushed to St Georges hospital who were brilliant and got him back to almost full health, but we had to go back to DVH untill he was 100%. after a few hours his sats started to drop again and nothing was done about it, the following day he was getting worse again and nothing was done until i contacted st georges hospital myself to ask for advice, they then told DVH what had to be done and from there he finally got better after spend 15 days in hospital. since then he has been back a couple of times with small things that worried us at the time and each time we visited we didn't feel important. The most recent visit we had was 22/1/11 which was for a possible broken leg as my partner had slipped on the stairs while carrying him. firstly in A&E we were treated as child beaters, then after the xray we was told he

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had a right broken leg, and the fitted him out with a back slab. we were then told to go back to willow ward which brought back some horrible memories. we sat in PAU waiting room for 3 hours waiting to see the doctor. after finnally seeing him we were told that social services would be contacting us. i cant remember the words he used but the way he put it across to us made us think that he thought we were beating our child. my partner had a panik attack in the hospital because of all of this and the doctor offered no assistance and left the room leaving me with a very upset child and my partner who now couldnt breath. i managed to get the situation under control but was very annoyed that the doctor left and didnt help out. once we got home we recieved a call asking us to return to the hospital the following day to speak with the consultant, after speaking with him he put our minds at ease over the social services situation. he also said that the bone specailist had looked at the xrays and couldnt see a break with his leg. so now we are very confused. is it or is it not broken? he was left with the back slab on until today when we visited the fracture clinic. the doctor there cut his back slab off and pulled him about abit, obviously he wasnt happy about this so cried. he also asked if he would walk on it and he wouldnt ( i suspect because it was stiff from not moving it for 10 days) but the doctor said it must be broken so had a cast but on him, this new cast goes half way up his thigh even tho the possible break is only jst above his ankle... there was no expliantion given as to why it is so high up his leg, i am now worried that if it isnt broken is it doing more harm than good as he is very distressed as he cant get about, he is a very independent 1 year old and like to go and play with his toys on his own and now he can't. I want to get a new xray done to confirm a break and if its not i want the cast removed as i want my son to be happy.Opening hoursServiceConsultantsDoctorsFracturesX-rayTriageVisiting timesFalls trips and slips

Responses

I was so very sorry to read of your difficult experiences following the birth of your son and then the attendance at the Accident and Emergency Department. Clearly this has been very distressing for you and your family. It may be helpful to meet with senior staff to discuss these issues, and I have asked the Senior Nurse for Paediatrics, Mrs Lynn Brooks to arrange this. Please can you contact Mrs Brooks via email (lynn.brooks@dvh.nhs.uk) to discuss what happened and establish what could be done to avoid such a situation in future.